A Broken Hourglass
by JustOneLittleProblem
Summary: Charley Pollard wanted nothing more than to spend her life adventuring around the world. Now she can travel the entire multiverse, but disaster is looming on the horizon. Can she and the Doctor save the Web of Time in, well, time? (An Eighth Doctor x Charley Pollard soulmates UA)
1. Chapter 1

One moment Charlotte Pollard was in a bustling London street, with the great airship looming overhead like some monstrous beast tethered to a mooring tower. The next, she was clutching her rucksack, emptying the contents of her stomach all over a cool, glassy floor.

Even as sickly greenish blue swirls danced across her vision, hands roughly seized her, hauling her to her feet. The unknown people dragged her down a corridor lined with barred doors.

A prison, Charley realised. How exactly did I get here? Charley wondered uneasily. One of her captors let go of her, and passed in front of her to open the door to a cell. Charley frowned thoughtfully at her guards. They looked almost like prisoners themselves, wearing dull grey jumpsuits and dumb expressions. The door swung open, and she was being flung inside.

Charley landed hard, on all fours, only slightly cushioned by her rucksack. Scrambling up, Charley whipped around, but the guards had already gone. Knowing that it was likely not to be any good, she tried the door. Locked.

The odd thing is, Charley mused, that there isn't any kind of lock or bolt on the doors. How do they do that? Well. Guess that rules out picking the lock. Turning around, Charley began to explore the confines of her cell.

There wasn't much of it. A ten foot cube, it was made of some glassy material, and had no furnishings whatsoever. Grabbing her rucksack, she sat down in the farthest corner, and hoped for an opportunity to escape whatever this was.

She had not imagined her tenure as an Edwardian Adventuress going quite like this. Charley reached into her rucksack, pulling out her journal. As she held it up to the light, her right sleeve fell back, revealing her soulmark. Written in lovingly messy cursive, it detailed the most absurd words ever dreamt up for a soulmark.

The Doctor glanced up from his cup of tea and a copy of the Time Machine. Where to go next? He'd spent enough time sitting quietly in the vortex. Time for some adventure! The Doctor glanced at his wrist. He'd long ago memorised the painfully neat print of his soulmark, but had since given up on finding his soulmate.

Or trying to parse why it was in English. Dismissing it with a flick of his gaze, the Doctor set down his tea and book, and strode across the console room. The TARDIS hummed contentedly, and the Doctor smiled, stroking the console. Then he paused, sifting through a thousand years worth of memories and knowledge to attempt to think of a destination.

Midnight? No, a resort planet really wasn't his style this time around. Balhoon? No, not quite to his taste. Akhenaten? Yes, perfect. Smiling, the Doctor set the coordinates, and waited until the flight path flashed white on the scanner, then carefully toggled the transit switch.

Then he flipped the dematerialisation switch. And that's where things began to go horribly wrong. Abruptly the end coordinates changed, and the time rotor went haywire. The vibration of the TARDIS increased to panic inducing levels, and it began to buck and heave. The Doctor clung tenaciously to the console, a wild grin on his face. "A time contour! Haven't been caught in one of those in centuries!"

There was no reply, and the Doctor realised with a slight pang that he'd forgotten once again that he didn't have any companions. The trip went by faster than he'd expected, and he busied himself with rematerialisation protocols. That dealt with, the Doctor stepped outside, his exhilaration mixing with that of the TARDIS.

But only for a second. Time itself was being pulled out of shape, threatening to tear. Queasy, with his time senses aflame, the Doctor staggered deeper into the prison.

Charley pressed herself to the glassy wall, trying vainly to find any weaknesses. It felt like she'd been at it for hours. Charlotte Pollard flopped down, and gazed fixedly at the door. Maybe the guards would come back, and she could jump them and escape. Soft, light footsteps.

They might have been very quiet ordinarily, but in the silence they were deafening. Charley scrunched down, trying to be invisible. A man appeared, silhouetted in the barred window of her cell door. From what Charley could see of him, he seemed ordinary enough. He wore a royal blue frock coat, and a silver waistcoat and a grey cravat. His hair was longish and dark auburn.

His features were rather attractive, and those blue eyes- they'd seen things. Charley scrunched down further, a sudden burst of fear flaring to life in her chest. What if he was her kidnapper? Charley gulped. A loud hum, and the door swung open. The mystery man stepped inside. "Very poor interior decorating choices on this cell, if you ask me. The Rani ought to be-"

Charley's soulmark flared hot, and she yanked back her sleeve to look at the mark. It had faded from crisp black to dark blue. Charley stared at him, open mouthed. The man broke off, and looked at her oddly. "What?"

Charley frantically waved her wrist at him. "It's you! You're my soulmate!"

The man hissed softly, and drew back his sleeve, staring at his wrist. Then he looked back at Charley, and there was a strange look on his face. "Your name?"

"Charlotte Pollard, but my friends call me Charley. Yours?"

The man smiled brightly, but Charley noted that there were lines of pain around his eyes. "Charley it is, then. I'm the Doctor." Those blue eyes seemed to take her measure for a moment before the Doctor continued. "Now, if I can tell from your dress and speech, you're human, and from the early nineteen thirties. So the question is, what are you doing here, in the forty second century?"

Charley could only sit and gape at him. No, it couldn't be. Or maybe he was mad. But on the other hand, the things she'd seen… Eventually Charley managed to collect herself. "I have not the faintest idea. One moment I was in London, about to board the R101, then I was here, getting drop kicked into a cell."

Emotion flashed across the Doctor's face, too fast to read. But Charley thought it might be fear. An instant later, his face was once again open and friendly. The Doctor tilted his head as if listening, then abruptly offered Charley a hand up. "Well, I suppose that explains the steward's outfit. Now, come on, the guards are on their way."

Charley accepted his hand, and the Doctor pulled her to her feet. Rucksack clutched in one hand, holding onto the Doctor's hand with the other, Charley exited the room alongside the Doctor. They emerged into the hall, and saw a row of guards marching towards them.

The Doctor towed her in the other direction at a brisk run. Charley's heart thudded erratically against her ribs. She risked a glance over her shoulder, and was alarmed at what she saw. The guards were gaining on them with inhuman speed.

They skidded around a corner, and the Doctor let out a joyous laugh, pointing. Sitting at the end of the corridor, a blue box waited. Roughly the size of a large wardrobe, Charley's first thought was that it really needed a new coat of paint. The Doctor tugged her towards it, grinning. "That, Charley, is our escape plan."

Before Charley could ask exactly what a box was supposed to do for them, a door banged open not five paces from them. Seven guards and a sharp-featured brunette woman strode out. She levelled a gun at them, even as the guards surrounded them. The Doctor seemed remarkably at ease, although his eyes darted towards Charley periodically. The woman sneered at them. "Put your hands up. And Doctor, no trickiness. Or I shoot the girl first."

The Doctor and Charley both put their hands up. As the Doctor did so, his sleeve fell away just enough to expose the soulmark, now also a dark blue. The woman's eyes narrowed, and she strode forward, roughly grabbing the Doctor's wrist and flipping it over. "Found your soulmate, have you? And quite recently, too, I'd wager. Hmm, I wonder…"

She raked a speculative eye over Charley. Grabbing Charley's wrist, she glanced at it. Then she smiled, and it was a cold, predatory smile, like a shark before it rips into a hapless shoal of fish. "Why, Doctor, how unfortunate. You wait over nine hundred years for your soulmate, and she's a fixed point."

Charley was confused and a little frightened. What exactly was a fixed point? It had to be bad. Anything that made this woman happy was bound to be unpleasant. But other than that, Charley had not the faintest idea. She glanced at the Doctor inquiringly. "Who is she?"

The woman smiled mirthlessly. "I'm the Rani."

The Rani waved the gun in Charley's general direction. "Move along. There are matters we need to discuss."

Charley moved in the direction indicated. But her mind was whirling. Fixed points. Nine hundred years waiting for her. Sometimes people waited as long as a hundred years before finding their soulmate, but almost a thousand? And a box that wasn't a box. What had she gotten herself into?

Dimly, she sensed the Doctor beside her, and the room they entered. It was spotlessly white, unmarred save by the racks of unrecognisable medical equipment, and the metal table. Charley saw the blood spotting it, and stifled the urge to take a hasty step back.

The Rani popped up in front of her, and Charley resisted the urge to yell at her, or slap her. Probably wise, as the Rani was still aiming a gun at her. The Rani flicked her gaze over Charley dismissively, then focused on the Doctor, who was watching her with a hint of sincere anger. For a moment, they simply stared each other down. Then the Doctor spoke. "What do you want from me, Ushas?"

The Rani let out a hiss of anger. Well. Apparently that struck a nerve. Charley was growing angry herself. She was out of her depth, awash in a sea of secrets, and that made her angry. Gradually the Rani seemed to get ahold of herself. "Simply to tell you that there are no more prisoners to attempt to rescue."

The Rani looked away, fingers tangling in her voluminous skirts. "And to warn you that there were consequences from the disposal of the other two fixed points. The Web of Time is tearing, and the repercussions will be felt across the universe. I suggest that you take a leaf out of my book, and spend some time in a parallel universe. Consider it a courtesy to my oldest enemy."

Charley couldn't take it anymore. "Explain this to me! What. Is. Going. On?"

The Doctor took her hand, and gently tugged her toward the exit. "I promise you that I will explain everything as soon as we get away from here. Now, let's go, before the Rani changes her mind and decides to kill us."

Charley glanced at the rucksack she held in one hand. "All right."

They headed out into the hall, and Charley paused, waiting as the Doctor unlocked the door on the box using a strange looking key. The Doctor dropped her hand, and disappeared inside. Charley wandered after him, blinking in the sudden darkness. "It's not funny, Doctor."

When her eyes adjusted, her mouth fell open.


	2. Chapter 2: A Few Simple Questions

Charley stared, transfixed by the sight before her. The million questions jostling in her head were temporarily knocked into submission by the sight. She was in a massive room, far larger than the shabby exterior of the police box would allow for. It was lavishly furnished, with a miniature library in one corner, and candelabras, stands of clocks, and even a fishpond cluttering up the floor elsewhere.

A darkened ceiling stretched to infinity above it all. In the very centre of the room, four intricate wrought iron struts formed the shape of a gigantic bell, enclosing a control console of some sort. The Doctor leaned up against one of those struts, watching Charley with amusement and concern.

Charley forced her feet to move, and walked hesitantly towards the Doctor. She stopped across from him, and leaned up against the support strut opposite him. The Doctor smiled hopefully at her. "What do you think?"

Despite her uncertainty, Charley had to smile. "I love it! It's like a cathedral, only without the gargoyles and grotesques. What is it?"

The Doctor was positively grinning now. "It's the TARDIS, stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. She's my space and time machine. The best sentient, telepathic timeship around."

The Doctor bounced over to the console, and started pushing buttons and flipping levers seemingly at random, with the fingers of one hand crossed behind his back. Meanwhile, Charley was processing the implications of his last statement. Telepathic. She knew what that meant, but she never thought she'd hear it outside of a pulp fiction story.

Charley dropped her rucksack on the ground, and moved closer to the Doctor, even as he flipped a final switch with a flourish. Come to think of it, the background hum did seem almost alive. The central column's blue glow grew brighter, and it slowly began to rise and fall. "So you mean the ship is alive, aware, and it's listening to our thoughts?"

The last was slightly accusatory. The lights on the console lit up and blinked in a fashion that seemed almost offended. The Doctor favoured her with a mild look. "Yes, she is alive and aware, but she doesn't snoop around in your head except in emergencies." The blue column ground to a halt, and the Doctor grinned again. "We're inside the time vortex. Fancy a look?"

Charley nodded, and the Doctor flipped a lever. All around them, the walls and ceiling turned transparent, revealing a stunning purple vista shot through with blue and yellow. Charley watched it for a moment. Then, happening to glance at the metal support pillars and where they met at the top, Charley got an idea. Shooting the Doctor a sly grin, Charley took her years of experience in illicit tree climbing, and scrambled up the nearest support strut.

A few breathless seconds later, she was sitting atop the structure enclosing the console. She grinned at the Doctor, who was blinking up at her in astonishment. "You know, the view is much better from up here. Care to join me?"

A smile bloomed across the Doctor's face, and he started climbing. "Don't mind if I do." Not much later, the Doctor sat down next to her. He grinned happily at her. "What do you want to know?"

Charley studied his face carefully. "What's a fixed point, and why am I one?"

Charley saw a flicker of fear cross the Doctor's face before he settled into a blank non-expression. A cold chill settled in her midsection, and she swallowed. The Doctor watched her for a long moment before speaking. When he did, he seemed to be battling some unknown emotion. "You aren't a fixed point, but your death is. When you chose to board the R101, you unknowingly created a chain of events that would lead to your death. The only reason you're alive now is that the Rani intervened."

No. It couldn't be, Charley thought in disbelief. But what did she know? She was entirely out of her depth here. Instead, with a strangely detached feeling, Charley found herself asking, "How was I going to die? Why couldn't you change it? After all, you do have a time machine."

The Doctor seemed entranced by the minutiae of his coat sleeves. Then he looked up. "Time wants to happen. But there are always some things that can be changed. However, fixed points are not one of them. To change a fixed point is to risk time itself ripping apart. On October fifth, 1930, in the early hours of the morning, the R101 crashes while crossing over France. Everyone aboard dies. But what if someone didn't die? Imagine the difference that would make to the Web of Time."

Charley felt compelled to protest. "But how could my still being alive affect things that much?"

For once, the Doctor looked utterly serious. "Believe me, Charlotte Pollard, there are few things more powerful than an ordinary woman who is alive who wasn't before. Ordinary people just like you stop wars and start them, cure diseases, and fly into the stars. I might not be able to see your timeline, but I suspect you'll do great things."

His earnest blue eyes bored into hers. Charley looked away, feeling oddly flattered. Then she processed the rest of what the Doctor had said. "Timeline? How could you possibly 'see' a timeline?"

The Doctor gave her a small smile that seemed equal parts amused and apologetic. "There never seemed an appropriate time to tell you, and for that I apologise. I am a Time Lord of Gallifrey."

Charley took off her hat, and let it fall, watching as it fluttered to the ground ten feet below. She grinned at him. "Sounds Irish."

An equally teasing grin spread across the Doctor's face. "Only if Ireland is two hundred fifty trillion miles away from Earth."

Eyes wide with shock, Charley studied his face for any indication that he was pulling her leg. Despite the happy, teasing grin on his face, Charley could find none. "You're not human."

The Doctor bobbed his head, still smiling serenely. But his eyes watched her carefully. "As I said, I'm a Time Lord. I have two hearts, I can sense time, and I am almost a thousand years old."

After all Charley had seen and heard today, this was almost a blip on the radar. Charley examined the piping on her sleeve, feeling a bit shell shocked. Then she glanced up at the Doctor. "Okay."

Time for the real questions. Charley fixed her gaze on the Doctor. He stared back with mild curiosity. "Where do I fit into all of this? And what is happening next?"

The Doctor paused for a moment, considering. "I don't know." He said honestly. "I gave up on finding my soulmate centuries ago. If you want me to take you to a safe planet, I can."

Charley thought about it, carefully noting the bottled up emotion in his voice. She thought of growing up in a society where she didn't fit, and of her dread of finding her soulmate. Thought of her mother's lectures on her duties to her soulmate. Charley realised that, for once, the universe had been kind.

She had found her soulmate, sure. But she had found a place where she thought she might well be happy. Charley thought of how well their hands had fit, and wondered fleetingly if they fit in other ways. She glanced up at the Doctor. "I'm staying."

The Doctor smiled at her, and started to climb down the support pillar. "Tomorrow we head to another universe. At least until I can figure out how to repair the damage done to the Web of Time."

Charley climbed down after him, and picked up her rucksack. She left the fallen hat where it was. The Doctor flicked the lever again, and the ceiling was once again just a ceiling. The Doctor started across the room, and Charley followed. She reached out, and took his hand. "Who is the Rani? You seemed to know her pretty well."

The Doctor smiled ruefully. "I knew her in school, back in the Time Lord Academy. She was brilliant, even then, but cold."

Charley shivered. She supposed 'cold' was one way to describe the Rani, even if it was the understatement of the century. Then Charley remembered something. "Her soulmark was blue. Where is her soulmate?"

The Doctor's eyes went distant, as if he was remembering something not entirely pleasant. "She found her soulmate, and promptly decided that she did not care for the idea of a close emotional connection. Being her perfect other half, her soulmate had already decided the same thing. She attempted to kill the Rani, and they fought it out like the Cats of Kilkenny. As you can tell-" he shrugged, looking faintly ill, "the Rani won."

As they headed down a brightly lit corridor panelled in gleaming white, Charley glanced down at their interlocked hands, then at the Doctor. "What happens if the Web of Time is damaged?"

The Doctor's hands shook ever so slightly. He swallowed, just once. "No one knows. But there are rumours that it would rip the universe apart."


End file.
